The Clinic

by Jonathan Kellerman

  She laughed again, got up, and closed the door. She was shapely, and taller than I'd thought: five-eight or -nine, a good deal of it legs.

  “Yes,” she said, sitting down again and crossing them. “She was a brilliant listener. Had a way of . . . moving in. Not just emotionally, actually getting close physically— inching toward you. But without seeming intrusive. Because she made you feel as if you were the most important person in the world.”

  “Charisma and passion.”

  “Yes. Like a good evangelist.”

  The legs uncrossed. “This must sound so strange. First I tell you I didn't know her, and then I go on as if I did. But everything I've said is just an impression. She and I never got close, though at first I thought she wanted a friend.”

  “Why's that?”

  “The day after the tea she called me saying she'd really enjoyed meeting me, would I like to have coffee in the Faculty Club. I was ambivalent. I liked her but I didn't want to talk about the shelter again. Even so, I accepted. Determined to keep my mouth shut.” The doll bounced. “Unbelievably, I ended up talking again. About the worst cases I'd seen: women who'd been brutalized beyond comprehension. That was the first time I saw the ferociousness in her eyes.”

  She looked at the doll, put it back on the shelf. “All this can't possibly help you.”

  “It might.”

  “How?”

  “By illuminating her personality,” I said. “Right now, there's little else to go on.”

  “That assumes her personality had something to do with her being murdered.”

  “You don't think it did?”

  “I have no idea. When I found out she'd been killed, my first assumption was that her politics had angered some psychotic.”

  “A stranger?”

  She stared at me. “You're not actually saying it had anything to do with the committee?”

  “We don't have enough information to say anything, but is it impossible?”

  “Highly improbable, I'd say. They were just kids.”

  “Things got pretty rough. Especially with the Storm boy.”

  “Yes, that one did have a temper. And a foul mouth. But the transcripts may be misleading— make him out worse than he was.”

  “In what way?”

  She thought. “He was . . . he seemed to me more bark than bite. One of those blustery kids who throws tantrums and then gets it off his chest? And the accounts of the murder made it sound like a stalking. I just can't see a kid doing that. Then again, I don't have kids, so what do I know?”

  “When Hope asked you to serve, what specifics did she give you?”

  “She reassured me it wouldn't take much time. She said it was provisional but certain to be made permanent and that it had strong backing from the administration. Which, of course, wasn't true. In fact, she made it sound as if the administration had asked her to set it up. She told me we'd be focusing on offenses that didn't qualify for criminal prosecution and that our goal would be early detection— what she called primary prevention.”

  “Catching problems early.”

  “Catching problems early in order to avoid the kinds of things I'd seen at the shelter.” Shaking her head. “She knew what button to push.”

  “So she misled you.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, sadly. “I suppose she felt a straightforward approach wouldn't have worked. And maybe it wouldn't have. I certainly don't enjoy sitting in judgment of people.”

  “From the transcripts, the other member, Casey Locking, didn't mind judging.”

  “Yes, he was quite . . . enthusiastic. Doctrinaire, really. Not that I fault him. How sincere can any student be when collaborating with his faculty supervisor? Power is power.”

  “Did Hope say why she appointed him?”

  “No. She did tell me one member would have to be a man. To avoid the appearance of a war between the

  sexes.”

  “How did she react when you resigned?”

  “She didn't.”

  “Not at all?”

  “Not at all. I called her office and left a message on her machine, explaining that I just didn't feel comfortable continuing, and thanking her for thinking of me. She never returned the call. We never spoke again. I assumed she was angry . . . and now we're judging her. That bothers me. Because no matter what she did I believe she had good intentions and what happened to her is an atrocity.”

  She got up and showed me the door.

  “I'm sorry, I can't talk about this anymore.” Her hand twisted the knob and the door opened. The gray eyes had narrowed with strain.

  “Thanks for your time,” I said, “and sorry to dredge up unpleasantness.”

  “Maybe it needed dredging. . . . The whole thing is sickening. Such a loss. Not that one person's life is worth more than another's. But Hope was impressive— she had spine. Especially impressive if I'm right that she had been abused, because that would mean she'd made it. Had summoned the strength to help others.”

  She bit her lip again. “She was strong. The last person you'd think of as a victim.”

  10

  It was 2:00 P.M. when I stepped outside.

  I thought of the way Hope had elicited Julia Steinberger's tears at the faculty tea by stoking old memories.

  A good listener— Cindy Vespucci said the same thing.

  But she hadn't handled Kenny Storm— or the other two male students— very skillfully.

  Able to deal with women but not with men?

  Most probably a man had executed her— I realized that's how I thought of the murder. An execution.

  Which man?

  Long-suffering husband pushed to the brink? A deranged stranger?

  Or someone midway between those two extremes on the intimacy scale?

  Crossing the quad, I sat down at a stone table and checked the class schedules Milo had given me.

  Unless they were playing hooky, Patrick Huang was in the middle of a thermodynamics class, Deborah Brittain was contending with Math for Humanities Majors, and Reed Muscadine, the theater-arts grad student, was participating in something called Performance Seminar 201B a half-mile away in MacManus Hall on the north end of the campus. But Tessa Bowlby's Psychology of Perception class would be letting out in fifteen minutes in the Psych Tower.

  I studied the picture of the young woman who had accused Reed Muscadine of date rape. Very short dark hair and a thin, slightly weak-jawed face. Even allowing for the poor photocopy, she looked discouraged.

  The drooping eyes of someone much older.

  But not because of the encounter with Muscadine. The picture had been taken at the beginning of the school year, months prior. I had a quick cup of vending-machine coffee and returned to the Psychology Tower to see if life had knocked her even lower.

  Her class let out five minutes early and students gushed into the hall like dam water. She wasn't hard to spot, heading for the exit alone, hauling a denim bag bulging with books. She stopped short when I said, “Ms. Bowlby?”

  Her arm dropped and the bag's weight yanked down her shoulder. Despite the tentative chin and a few pimples, she was waifishly attractive with very white skin and enormous blue eyes. Her hair was dyed absolute black, cut unevenly— either carelessly or with great intention. Her nose was pink at the tip and nostrils— a cold or allergies. She wore a baggy black raglan sweater with one sleeve starting to unravel, old black pipestem jeans torn at the knees, and lace-up leather boots with thick soles and toes scuffed fuzzy.

  She backed up against the wall to let classmates pass. I showed her my ID and began my introduction.

  “No,” she said, waving one narrow hand, frantically. “Please.” Pleading in a hoarse voice. Her eyes darted to the exit sign.

  “Ms. Bowlby—”

  “No!” she said, louder. “Leave me alone! I have nothing to say!”

  She shot for the exit. I hung back for a moment, then followed, watching from a distance as she hurried out the main doors of the tower, racing, nearly
tumbling, down the front steps, toward the inverted fountain that fronted the tower. The fountain was dry and streams of students converged near the dirty black hole before spreading out and radiating across campus like a giant ant trail.

  She ran clumsily, struggling with the heavy bag. A thin, fragile-looking figure, so emaciated her buttocks failed to fill out the narrow jeans and the denim flapped with each stride.

  Drugs? Stress? Anorexia? Illness?

  As I wondered, she slipped into the throng and became one of many.

  Her anxiety— panic, really— made me want to talk to the man she'd accused.

  I recalled the details of the complaint: movie and dinner, heavy petting. Tessa claiming forced entry; Muscadine, consensual sex.

  The kind of thing that could never be proved, either way.

  AIDS testing for him. She'd already gotten tested.

  Negative. So far.

  But now she was ghostly pale, thin, fatigued.

  The disease took time to incubate. Maybe her luck had changed.

  That could account for the panic . . . but she was still enrolled in classes.

  Maybe Hope Devane had been a source of support. Now, with Hope dead and her own health in question, was she overwhelmed?

  The testing had been done at the Student Health Center. Getting records without legal grounds would be impossible.

  Having a look at Muscadine seemed more important than ever, but the acting seminar was one of those weekly things that lasted four hours and was only half-over.

  In the meantime, I'd try the others. Patrick Huang would be free in thirty minutes, Deborah Brittain soon after. Huang's class was nearby, in the Engineering Building. Back to the Science Quad. As I started to turn, a deep voice behind me said, “Sleuthing on campus, Detective?”

  Casey Locking stood several steps above me, looking amused. His long hair was freshly moussed, and he wore the same long leather coat, jeans, and motorcycle boots. Black T-shirt under the coat. The skull ring was still there, too, despite his remark about getting rid of it.

  Glinting in the sunlight, the death's-head grin wide, almost alive.

  In the ringed hand was a cigarette, in the other an attachÉ case, olive leather, gold-embossed CDL over the clasp. The fingers sandwiching the cigarette twitched and smoke puffed and rose.

  “I'm not a detective,” I said.

  That made him blink, but nothing else on his face moved.

  I climbed to his level and showed him my consultant's badge. His mouth pursed as he studied it.

  So Seacrest hadn't told him.

  Meaning they weren't confidants?

  “Ph.D. in what?”

  “Psychology.”

  “Really.” He flicked ashes. “For the police?”

  “Sometimes I consult to the police.”

  “What exactly do you do?”

  “It varies from case to case.”

  “Crime-scene analysis?”

  “All kinds of things.”

  My ambiguity didn't seem to bother him. “Interesting. Did they assign you to Hope's murder because she was a psychologist or because the case is perceived as psychologically complex?”

  “Both.”

  “Police psychologist.” He took a long, hard drag, holding the smoke in. “The career opportunities they never tell you about in grad school. How long have you been doing it?”

  “A few years.”

  White vapors emerged from his nostrils. “Around here all they talk about is pure academics. They measure their success by the number of tenure-track types they place. All the tenure-track jobs are disappearing but they groom us for them, anyway. So much for reality-testing, but I guess the academic world's never been noted for having a good grip on reality. Do you think Hope's murder will ever be solved?”

  “Don't know. How about you?”

  “Doesn't look promising,” he said. “Which stinks. . . . Is that big detective on the ball?”

  “Yes.”

  He smoked some more and scratched his upper lip. “Police psychologist. Actually, that appeals to me. Dealing with the big issues: crime, deviance, the nature of evil. Since the murder I've thought a lot about evil.”

  “Come up with any insights?”

  He shook his head. “Students aren't permitted to have insights.”

  “Have you found a new advisor yet?”

  “Not yet. I need someone who won't make me start all over or dump scut work on me. Hope was great that way. If you did your job, she treated you like an adult.”

  “Laissez-faire?”

  “When it was deserved.” He ground out the cigarette. “She knew the difference between good and bad. She was a fine human being and whoever destroyed her should experience an excruciatingly slow, immensely bloody, inconceivably painful death.”

  His lips turned upward but this time you couldn't call the end product a smile. He put down his attachÉ case, and reaching under the coat, pulled out a hardpack of Marlboros.

  “But that's unlikely to happen, right? Because even if somehow they do catch him, there'll be legal loopholes, procedural calisthenics. Probably some expert from our field claiming the prick suffered from psychosis or an impulse-control disorder no one's ever heard of before. That's why I like the idea of what you do. Being on the right side. My research area's self-control. Petty stuff— free-feeding in rats versus schedules of reinforcement. But maybe one of these days I'll be able to relate it to the real world.”

  “Self-control and crime detection?”

  “Why not? Self-control's an integral part of civilization. The integral component. Babies are born cute and cuddly and amoral. And it's certainly not hard to train them to be immoral, is it?”

  He made a pistol with his free hand. “Everyone's making such a big deal about ten-year-olds with Uzis but it's just Fagin and the street rats with a little technology thrown in, right?”

  “Lack of self-control,” I said.

  “On a societal level. Take away external control mechanisms and the internalization process— conscience development— is immobilized and what you get are millions of savages running around giving free rein to their impulses. Like the piece of shit who killed Hope. So goddamn stupid!”

  He produced a lighter and ignited another cigarette. Slightly shaky hands. He jammed them in the pockets of his coat.

  “I tell you, I'd study real life if I could, but I'd be in school for the rest of my life and that's a no-brainer. Hope steered me right, said not to try for the Nobel Prize, pick something doable, get my union card, and move on.”

  He sucked smoke. “Finding another advisor won't be easy. I'm considered the departmental fascist because I can't stand platitudes and I believe in the power of discipline.”

  “And Hope was okay with that.”

  “Hope was the ultimate scholar-slash-good-mother: tough, honest, secure enough to let you go your own way once you proved you weren't full of shit. She looked at everything with a fresh eye, refused to do or be what was expected of her. So they killed her.”

  “They?”

  “They, he, some drooling, psychopathic, totally fucked-up savage.”

  “Any theories about the specific motive?”

  He glanced back at the glass doors of the tower. “I've spent a long time thinking about it and all I've come up with are mental pretzels. Finally I realized it's a waste of energy because I have no data, just my feelings. And my feelings were knocking me low. That's really why it took so long to get back to my research. That's why I couldn't even go near my data til last night. But now it's time to get back in gear. Hope would want that. She had no patience for excuses.”

  “Whose idea was it to barter data for car care?” I said.

  He stared at me. “I called Phil up, he said he was having trouble getting the car started, so I offered to help.”

  “So you knew him before.”

  “Just from working with Hope. Basically, Phil's asocial. . . . Well, good talking to you.”

  He picked
up the attachÉ case and started up the stairs.

  I said, “What's your view of the Interpersonal Conduct Committee?”

  He stopped, smiled. “That, again. My view? I thought it was an excellent idea with insufficient enforcement power.”

  “Some people believe the committee was a mistake.”